This is what happens when I can't find anything better to post...

Well, we have had a hard time coming up with new adventures to go on lately, so I will now subject you all to another round of baby pictures. Thought I'd start with a nice set of before and after shots for you. This is Erik at about two weeks old.

 And this is Erik at almost 6 months old.

There's definitly been a little bit of growth going on here.

Erik is turning into a little acrobat. He's decided that the best thing in the world is hanging upside down. He'll spend as long as we'll let him hanging off of our laps. That is, of course, until his drool starts running up his nose. 

 He will also do anything it takes to watch the TV or the computer. I put him down on the living room floor facing away from the TV, and this is what happens.

 Alright, so this next set of pictures is from a while ago, but I haven't put them on here yet. Back in November Erik got his first haircut. We were tired of it getting in his ears and eyes, and he was tired of trying to figure out how to let go of it. He'd be playing on the floor and all the sudden he'd start shrieking. I'd run in to see what was wrong, and he'd have a hold of his hair and not know how to let go. He'd be pulling and yanking and trying to get his hand away and it just didn't work very well. So here's before...

 ...and here's after the haircut.

Don't you wish you had a physique like this? Minus the drool of course.

  Our new favorite activity is eating. Erik loves to eat anything he can get his hands on. Anything made out of cloth becomes a great toy instantly, a burp rag will entertain him for hours.

 Also on the menu are rice cereal, carrots, and peas. Carrots are definitly the favorite, but he'll eat the peas when there's nothing orange to chew on.  

Don't you just wish you could eat him up!

Erik's first Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas this year! My family came all the way from New Mexico and we spent a week playing games, sightseeing, and eating more food than we ever knew we could hold. It was all so much fun! We took them to see the Waverly Plantation, Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge, and several other of our favorite sights around here. The best part was just spending time together. Erik thouroughly enjoyed all the attention and has been pretty lonely for all his new buddies now that they're gone. This picture totally captures what it looked like in my living room for most of the week. The boys played lots of computer, Nina and Erik did lots of cuddling, and the rest of us just sat around and talked.

Staying true to Mower family traditions, Erik got to open a present on Christmas Eve. Actually, he opened two, one from each set of grandparents. First he opened his Christmas pj's and a bed time story from Grandma and Grandpa Mower.

Erik was totally willing to model his new jammies for us all, especially since he got to stay awake a little longer to do so!

Grammy and Grandpa Richins gave Erik an awesome Fisher Price nativity scene, so now I can have my pretty ones and he can have his to play with.

Christmas morning started with everyone's favorite Richins family tradition, dragging Dad out of bed. He actually managed to get away pretty easy this year, we just made lots of threats and he crawled out of bed on his own. Not like previous years when we've all grabbed a limb and picked him up and plunked him on the floor.

It was really fun to watch the younger siblings opening their presents. I don't think they had any idea what was coming, but once they got those presents open, they were pretty darn excited, although atleast the older two tried pretty hard not to show that all they really wanted to do was scream and yell and jump up and down.

They all got brand new ipod touches. Heber spent some time hugging his, while Nina was kissing hers. Yes Nina, I saw you do it! Brigham did the best at hiding his excitement, but still couldn't help himself!

Not to be outdone by the kids, Dad had to go and supersize his Christmas present. He lucked out with an Ipad for his present.

Erik made a pretty good haul. He got toys and books and clothes and all kinds of fun stuff. I think his favorite is the little blue ball thing towards the left of the picure. He'll spend huge amounts of time trying to eat it up.

It was so much fun to spend Christmas with my family and we can't wait until we get to see them again!

Scattertown Trail

A few weekends ago we were bored and decided to go for another ramble through the woods. This time we took the Scattertown trail, which winds along the tops of hills in the Bevils Hill area. It was a pretty fun walk, and while the hills weren't huge, they were enough to force us to stop and catch our breath every once in a while. Again, we had to keep a sharp eye out for the trail, all the fallen leaves made it hard to tell sometimes where the trail was. This is looking back down one of the hills at the trail.
Between the brown leaves on the ground, the brown tree trunks all around, and the brown branches overhead, it at first seemed like everything was brown. I was a little worried when we started out that it was going to be a somewhat boring hike, at least as far as the scenery was concerned. It was really fun though, to notice little splashes of color in places I may not have noticed had there been more to look at all around. It was fun to hunt for the little interesting details along the trail. Here are just a few things I found. This tree was really pretty. The picture doesn't capture the vibrant orange of the leaves very well, but it was really cool looking. Next we have several examples of some really cool lichen that we found.

This little guy was hiding in the leaves along the trail. I thought it looked cool just barely poking up through the leaf litter.

After we finished our ramblings, we decided to go check out Loakfoma Lake. Loakfoma is in Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge, and is right next to Bluff Lake where we saw our alligator last time. Loakfoma is smaller than Bluff Lake and has more birds this time of year. You can't get right down on the shores of the lake, but there is a outlook point with binoculars so you can sit and watch the birds. It was a somewhat rainy, wet day so we sat in the little shelter at the outlook at watched the rain and the ducks and just enjoyed being outside. While we were there a bit of fog started creeping in on the shores of the lake and it was really pretty to watch.

We may be far from home, but this sure is a pretty neat place to be. We're really enjoying experiencing this whole new world.

Fall Foliage and Craig Pond

So I'm a little behind with my posts. I took some pictures of the pretty fall colors around here but never got around to posting them. With all the trees here we had high expectations for the fall, and while things weren't quite as colorful as we had hoped for it was really pretty.

Ethan and I decided we wanted to get out and enjoy the beautiful fall weather, so we went down to Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge (one of our favorite places here if you hadn't figured that out yet) and took the trail through the woods out to Craig Pond. Here's a picture of the trail. This is one of the places where the trail was pretty clearly visible, but sometimes you just picked the biggest gap through the trees and hoped it was the one you were supposed to take.

Erik is just over 17 pounds now, so we have started taking turns carrying him when we go places. It's amazing how tiring it is to have him strapped to you as you're walking.

He was sure fascinated by all the trees and everything we were walking past.

After some wandering around and backtracking and a bit of bush-whacking we finally found the pond. It wasn't very big, but it was kinda pretty and there was a nice little bench where Erik and I hung out while Ethan wandered around and took some pictures.

The trees around the pond were changing color and they were really pretty.

On the way back to the car, Erik had had enough of his pack, so Ethan just carried him. I think Erik was just trying to avoid falling asleep and taking a nap.